I am a layoff survivor

I am a survivor of a layoff. Not to be mistaken with surviving a layoff. The latter concerns itself with what to do after one has been laid off. I am talking about staying employed in an organisation that has laid off a significant portion of its workforce.

After the last of my friends left the company, I tried to move on by immersing myself in my work and trying to make it meaningful. One of them was a design project where I got to interview all the employees who were not separated from the organisation. Not surprisingly, people were hurting and in psychological pain. As they recounted their experience of going through the layoff exercise, the experience of anxiety, pain, stress, sadness, anger and betrayal, I could sense the fear in everyone.

I thought I was fine, but months after the last person was interviewed and the report written and presented, I was still down in the dumps. I was angry, anxious, worried, fearful and listless. The thought of work filled me with dread. I would feel sleepy throughout the day, even after a good night's sleep. I saw no future at work.

Photo by Damir Samatkulov on Unsplash

I felt like a cog in a machine and had no control over my life. I was a mere commodity and could be replaced at any time by a cheaper commodity. I felt my work had no value and I was not appreciated.

And I felt condemned and guilty for having these thoughts because I still had a job when so many of my friends lost theirs.

It wasn't until I started my research for my next YouTube video about emotional detachment and misery at work that I came across the term "layoff survivor sickness", and it dawned on me that I experienced mild depression, and the few articles that I could find on the matter referenced the book “Healing the Wounds: Overcoming the Trauma of Layoffs and Revitalizing Downsized Organizations”, which was written post the global financial crisis of 2007 when mass layoffs made millions of people unemployed.

The following excerpts were taken from a summary of the book provided by getabstract.

It was such a relief to find out that what I experienced was normal. I was hurting.

There is more written about layoffs from a victim's perspective than from the survivor of one. Why? Because we judge. We have more sympathy for those who lost their jobs than those who kept theirs. After all, the survivors still have a job. They should be grateful.

Sympathy is not empathy. Sympathy looks at the outcomes whereas empathy sees the person in pain.

If you are a survivor of a layoff I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. It is okay. You are normal. You are human and you don’t need to suffer in silence with your guilt.